Document Guidance & Applications
The forms, permits, and certificates that stand between you and getting on with your life.
One wrong box, and you come back next week.
Costa Rican institutions are not hostile, but they are precise. The form has to be the current version. The stamp has to be the right one. The name on the utility bill has to match the name on the deed. Miss one and you are told to come back, usually without being told exactly what to fix.
We prepare the application correctly the first time, submit it, and follow up until it is resolved. Where the institution allows a representative, we go instead of you.
The paperwork people get stuck on.
- Driver licence exchange and renewal
- Apostille and certified translation coordination
- Criminal record certificates, local and foreign
- Birth, marriage, and death certificate requests
- Permiso Sanitario de Funcionamiento from Ministerio de Salud
- Municipal patents and business licences
- Water service applications and transfers, AyA or your local ASADA
- Electricity service applications and transfers
- Property tax declarations at the municipality
- Constancias and certifications from public institutions
- Translation and explanation of any official letter you have received
What working with us looks like.
Tell us the problem
Often you do not know the name of the process. Describe the situation and we identify what is actually needed.
Checklist and quote
You get the exact document list, the official fee, our fee, and where the process happens.
We file it
We prepare the application, submit it, and handle the back and forth with the institution.
You get the result
The certificate, permit, or confirmation, plus copies of everything filed on your behalf.
Bring these and we can start.
- Your passport or DIMEX
- The property deed or cédula jurídica, if the process concerns a property or company
- Any letter or notice you have received about the matter
- Existing account numbers for utilities being transferred
- A signed authorisation where the institution requires a representative
Some take an hour. Some take a season.
A constancia can be same day. A sanitary operating permit or a municipal patent runs on the institution’s own review cycle and can take considerably longer, especially if an inspection is involved.
We tell you which category your request falls into before you commit, so you can plan around it rather than wonder.
Requirements and official fees are set by the institutions and can change without notice. We confirm the current list before quoting, and tell you immediately if something shifts mid-process.
Questions we get asked every week.
It becomes one. Billing disputes, disconnections, and complications when you sell all trace back to this. It is one of the most common things we fix for new property owners.
In many cases yes, with a signed authorisation. Some institutions require the holder in person, and we will tell you upfront which ones.
It is an international certification that makes a document from your country valid here. Most foreign civil and criminal record documents need it. It is issued in your country of origin, not in Costa Rica.
We explain documents to you in English. For official use, translations must be done by a translator registered with the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, and we coordinate that.
Yes. Send it over. Often it is routine, and knowing that is worth a lot.
Have a form you cannot decode?
Send us a photo of it. We will tell you what it is, what it wants, and whether it is urgent.